Somebody started a rumor of 10 lb. speckled trout coming from Sabine Lake. Sorry, I couldn’t find any evidence of that happening this year. Several years ago Sabine did yield some 10 lb. fish. However that’s not bad news. Jerry Mambretti, Texas Parks & Wildlife coastal biologist for Sabine Lake, said recent gill net sampling show an outstanding crop of speckled trout now in Sabine Lake.

“We are seeing good numbers of spotted seatrout, consistently in the 3 – 4 lb. range, but nothing in the 10 lb. range.” The Memorial Day S.A.L.T. Tournament was won by Steve Walker’s 5.66 lb. speck; the top three finishers were in the 5 lb. range with other fish in 3 – 4 lb. range.

“It’s kind of a continuation of last year when we set an all time new record for catch rate for spotted seatrout in our gill nets, the fish in the 1½-2 lb. range. Even if we don’t catch a single spotted seatrout in our gillnet sampling the rest of this year we will come in at second place, the second highest catch rate for all time for us in our 29 year record.”

A few years back when the Lake was delivering big trout to those who knew how and where to catch them, anglers Dr. Kelly Rising and Jay Wester had their names in the newspapers with fish weighing 11 lb. 8 oz. and 10 lb. 3 oz. respectively.

When Rising hooked his 11 lb. 8 oz. trout, he was fishing a shallow oyster reef. He had been fishing the same area for three weeks, catching trout in the 28-30 inch class, releasing fish weighing from 8 – 10 lbs. He caught the 11 lb. 8 oz. fish on a chartreuse colored Top Dog.

With the record gill net catches of speckled trout that Mambretti says are in the Lake, be patient. Those fish are going to grow up and will be stretching anglers’ line in a couple of years.

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